What If Your Family Did Not Have Enough Water to Drink?

This weekend, my husband took us on a road trip from Laguna Beach to Hanford, California. I love road trips because you get to see a little more of the state you’re in rather than just blotches from the sky, if you were in a plane.

On the way, we stopped to see the Vista Del Lago Visitors Center next to Pyramid Lake. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my camera in the car and couldn’t take pictures of the inside, but just to brief you, it had a little area where it highlights the importance of water and where our drinking water comes from. I never actually thought about water so much before this, but after pointing out the many things we use water for, I realized, that it’s really not an unlimited resource we could afford to really ignore.

Just think about the average number of things that water is used for:

Drinking (we are made up of up to 60% water)

Food

Plants

Cleaning

Cooking

Cooling ourselves

Playtime and recreation

Of course, humans aren’t the only ones who use water. Many animals live in it, find their food in it, and keep cool in it. Other animals depend on vegetation to live and without it, they can’t survive.

According to the USGS, science for a changing world, 96.5% of the world’s water is saline water (understand where that comes from?), 2.38% is locked into glaciers and ice caps, and only 1.12% is actually ground water, which include rivers and likes that are used for human consumption or our fresh water. Here’s a little pie chart to give you a better understanding:

Does this give you a little scare? The more I think about it, the more scared I DO get.

We think about the value of oil and how much we need it, granted, yes we do, but can you imagine what would happen if we ran out of water?

Take a look at the cycle of water found on the US Geological Survey site:

The Water Cycle found on USGS (click for more details)

So as you can see, nature and all the beauty we sometimes take for granted play a major role in our daily lives. We may not think about it or understand why it’s important, but it affects us all, including, perhaps, our children and our children’s children, and so on.

23 Comments

In India, we have many draught struck states and I really think, we all must understand the importance of clean water in our lives. Thanks for bringing up the issue of water, we all must be concerned about it!

I will tell you that other countries don’t have fresh water to drink and it’s awful. I think as Americans we take that for granted. Water is necessary and not having it I am not sure what would happen. This post certainly makes you think.

Water is really scarce and becoming more so in lots of different countries. Part of my role is encouraging businesses to improve water efficiency and reduce water use, but so often people take it for granted, when actually it can be more ‘expensive’ to us and the world around.

Since I live in the desert, we are always acutely aware and reminded by the state to conserve water. The drought has been very long standing. It’s scary when you think about the fact that water is not an unlimited resource!

it really is scary to think of water supply diminishing. dams here in our country is reaching alert levels and everyone is just praying for rain. it is a good thing it rained a bit today. i hope the rainfall will be enough to fill the dams so we do not have to worry about running low on water supply. i also hope people will continue to be conscious about their water consumption.